


Rain

by Sossity



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fire, Gen, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sossity/pseuds/Sossity





	Rain

It's supposed to rain later, says the radio filtering through the screen door of the electronics shop. Rain throughout the afternoon and evening and ending in the early morning.

Benton peers at the overcast sky and leaves behind the open doorway and close, darkened interior. 

He dumps his armful of fallen wood on the ground. Green, all of it, too green. The cold isn't something he feels much, but he finds the fire comforting. 

It amazes him how someone could clear-cut an entire hillside and leave the trees and branches dead on the ground to rot. As if they were useless.

_Americans._

There's a beer can in the stream by his tent. He fishes it out with a stick, careful not to cut himself. He couldn't manufacture a tetanus vaccine out of thin air, after all.

He drinks water out of a tin cup and waits.

The rain comes in clear, fat drops, just as promised. He's in desperate need of a haircut, but trickles of rain still manage to sneak their way under his collar and raise goosebumps on his back and shoulders. There's no fire that night. Nothing to draw things out of the darkness.

The sun is shining the next morning, birds are singing, but there's still the smell of rain in the air. 

He shaves carefully at the stream, mirror propped against a tree since the water moves too fast to hold a reflection. His face is old and tired and he doesn't want to think about it.

Ray Vecchio comes in the afternoon, making too much noise. 

"Hey, Benny. How ya doin'?"

Benny thinks about this. "Fine, Ray. And you?"

"Oh, I'm just great, Fraser. Just great. You been doing your...I dunno, tree stuff okay? Everything's good?"

"I'm _fine,_ Ray."

"Uh-huh."

"I promise."

Ray looks down and to the right. "I brought you some stuff."

Fraser eyes the bags and bundles of groceries Ray had dropped by the large rock. "Thank you, Ray," he responds. "You really don't have to do this."

Ray shrugs, still looking away. "Least I can do. Besides, it's kind of a routine now."

"Well, thank you again, Ray."

There's silence as Fraser tries to put together a polite way of saying that he doesn't need quite as much toilet paper as that, but he says nothing, as always.

"So Frannie's got another bun in the oven." Ray smiles suddenly. "She's threatening to name the poor kid Diefenbaker." 

"Oh, dear." 

"I think she's starting to run out of names."

"Well. It's a nice thought."

"Where is the old mutt, anyway?"

Fraser gestures vaguely toward the woods. "Off hunting. I'll tell him your good news when he gets back. I'm certain he'll be flattered."

They stood awkwardly. 

"Ah, how is the precinct doing?" Fraser isn't sure where the words come from.

Ray smiles sadly. "Not the same without you, Benny."

It's Fraser's turn to look at the ground.

Diefenbaker returns from his hunting trip the next day, as expected. It's his pattern: three days away and three days back. He waits as Dief drops a mangled squirrel at his feet, and then buries his hands in Dief's fur.

After the sun sets and the light fades enough for him to have trouble seeing, Fraser arranges the wood and kindling to his satisfaction and sets the fire.

Ray Kowalski seems to lean into the heat. Ben sets the cooking pot over the top as Ray stretches his palms out. His hair is as orange as the flames in this light, and his grin over the top of his glasses at Ben is just as wild.

Ben has to blink several times to distinguish between Ray and the fire. Must be smoke in his eyes.

He dishes two plates of spaghetti when it's done. Ray snickers, reflected firelight dancing in his eyes, over his teeth and skin. "We trading campfire stories, too?"

Ben licked his lip. "If you like."

Ray scoots closer. "You gonna bring out Lou Skagnetti? I always liked Lou Skagnetti."

"You must have heard them all by now, Ray," he protested.

Ray's face fades as he looks into the fire. "I got one, but I don't think you wanna hear it, Frase."

"Ray..." Ben's fork stops moving.

"See, it's about these two guys, one's from Chicago, one's from way the hell up in the Northwest Territories. That's in Canada, in case you never heard of it."

Ben's hand clenches on his plate.

"And these two guys end up having all these big-A Adventures all over the city, and one day--"

"I've heard it."

"--they...huh?"

"I said, I've heard it."

Ray scratches his cheek. "Yeah, I know you have."

"I don't particularly want to hear it again, Ray."

"Doesn't mean you don't _need_ to hear it, Ben."

Ben shakes his head, presses his lips together. "Not tonight."

Ray nods, giving a sad little smile. "Okay, not tonight."

Ben swallows.

"Looooooouuuuuu Skagnetti..." he begins.

Later, in the tent, breathing pitch-blackness with the night air settling heavily over him, he whispers, unable to control it, "Are you real?"

Silence goes on for so long that he wonders if he's alone again before Ray replies. "What the hell do you think?"

"I don't know. I'd like to think you are."

"What else would I be?"

Ben considers. "Imagination. Loneliness. Insanity. Grief."

He's not sure if he falls asleep, or if Ray simply doesn't answer. 

There's a bottle of scotch down at the bottom of one of Ray's bags of supplies. He shakes his head and wonders what Ray was thinking.

Morning comes early. The sky is clear and the temperature promises to get unseasonably warm indeed. Ben sheds his jacket for the first time since fall. 

His restless, damned feet take him by the Consulate this morning. There's a man he doesn't recognize standing guard duty. 

His hand is on the doorframe, leaving oils and microscopic flakes of skin behind on the rich wood. He takes a long look through the open doorway in return, letting his eyes adjust to the familiar wallpapers and picture frames. There is no sign of Turnbull at the front desk or of Thatcher, queen ant keeping the hill running smoothly. 

He thinks about stepping inside, but his feet stick to the mat. He can't. Not anymore. 

He turns away, fingers tingling oddly as they trail down the frame, threading his way between the buildings, between the blocks of wood painted to look like buildings, until he finds his way back to the park.

"One day, the Mountie and the Flatfoot hear word that Greta Garbo, the bitch they put away on their first case together, has escaped from the state penitentiary."

It's a warm night, but Fraser starts the fire anyway, dropping his match into the kindling and watching as the tiny flame catches on the drying twigs.

"Doing what they do best, our heroes quickly pick up the bad guy's trail straight back to the abandoned flophouse she's crashing at."

The thin, brittle brush catches quickly, and the fire rises.

"It's a fire trap. A maze of tiny corridors full of trash. Pretty sure some of the walls were made out of particle board or whatever the next worst thing is. And anything useful, like a fire extinguisher or a map or something, has got to be long gone."

The kindling builds the fire and holds on long enough for the larger pieces to catch.

"You 'n me, we always did have more guts than brains, so we tread on in. Probably one of us should have stopped and said something like, 'Hey, remember how we caught this chick in the first place?' But we didn't."

The fire crawls up the wood, leaving black soot and burned-out refuse.

"So you lead the way down the twisty little passages, tracking her perfume and whatever else she laid a trail with."

The fire is moving up the walls, now, and starting on the ceilings, leaving trails of discoloration and forcing Ray and Ben to shield their faces as they run.

"We find this room, got to be right near the middle of the building, with all these old papers and book pages torn up and thrown all over the place. We really should've figured it out then, shouldn't we?"

Ben pulls Ray stumbling down a flight of stairs, choking on heat and smoke. A step rots out from underneath Ben's foot, throwing him forward and sending Ray crashing into him from behind. They roll down the rest of the steps together and land at the bottom, Ray on top of him with lungs rattling and gasping. Ben wrestles them both to their feet and presses on.

"Her perfume's strong here; way stronger than down the hallways. I remember it stinging my throat, making me cough. Is that what tipped you off? I just know one minute I'm flipping through pages, looking for some kind of clue, and next minute you're dragging me off."

He's not sure what floor he's on when he realizes he's pulling most of Ray's weight. He stops, picks Ray up in a fireman's carry, and stumbles on. Ray doesn't protest, and that scares him.

"We're out in the corridor when I start to smell the smoke and feel the heat. I get so completely turned around, I barely even know which way is up. So I follow you."

The passageway is barely wide enough to move; some part of Ray's unconscious body is always touching the walls. He can faintly hear sirens, but he can't see anything. He hasn't seen a window since they entered. _Why are there no damn windows_?

"The air's thick smoke and we're having to start feeling up doorknobs when it hits me that you're lost, too."

The fire door is hanging by one hinge and 

"I just know there is no way I'm letting go of your hand, even if we are both completely screwed."

he's barely moving and 

"I think I start running?"

the night air hits his lungs; it's worse than the smoke and

"Or was it you? I don't know."

they're putting something up to his face and 

"Thinking about it now, we probably should have stayed close to the ground, right? But neither of us were thinking right then, were we?"

pulling Ray off him, but his hands won't open, his arms won't unlock, so they jab him with something and

"I just know there's no way in hell I was going to leave you there."

Ray leans forward to poke the fire with a stick, sending up little fireworks; red embers drifting upward and 

"No way in hell."

Ben's alone on the ground, staring up at the stars.


End file.
